


A Most Hideous Beast

by Oodles



Category: Bloodborne (Video Game)
Genre: Bad Ending, Beast transformation, Blood and Injury, M/M, Regret, when your hubris is big enough to level a city
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:20:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27959057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oodles/pseuds/Oodles
Summary: Laurence prays for strength at the end of his life.
Relationships: Laurence/Ludwig (Bloodborne)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 19





	A Most Hideous Beast

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this years ago and never posted it for no real reason but I love these two so much.

He feared drowning the most. To slowly be enveloped by the cold, just hoping and waiting for it to end and the sleep to begin. The struggle for air, the ice in your lungs, and the silence. To fight when there was no point, out of his control, no surface to break. Hopeless. 

Fire did not seem as bad. Erupting in heat and feeling every part of you. Painful, yes, but to feel was better than to be erased. 

These were some of the thoughts he held onto as he felt his mind dissolving. He knew what it was to be on fire– alight, every part of him. Someone had done this for him. What was their name? An empty space in his thoughts seared his brain. 

He knew this time would come. He told no one, of course, could not bear to tell the truth of it. His beloved empire would crumble when they found him like this, but hadn’t his old master warned him? Only a matter of time before he came undone. A countdown to the betrayal and his time was up. The blood made him who he was, gave him a pedestal to stand on and a city to rule, and now it spoiled his veins, running rotten through him. But he asked for this. 

His old master had thrown the word _pride_ at him many times. This was not pride, but hope. He had taken that blood with stars in his eyes, looking to the night sky and praying that his theories were correct, that he could finally heal this place. He took the risk knowing that it might come to this. His God was a rose, so beautiful and vivid to behold, all the while digging its thorns into the palm of his hand. The blood ran red down his wrists. 

Such a terrible pain had begun to take hold of him. On his knees in front of the altar, he clutched himself and banished his servants and guards, claiming he needed privacy. They feared a sickness had taken hold on him, and he comforted them that all he needed was more prayer, more faith, and then his God would heal him. 

He knew by now that he indulged too much, had grown too reliant on the blood.

And so it turned on him, pulling him into a dark place where his thoughts came in shattered pieces, unbound and cruel. And so very cold.

He had seen monsters before they had gated off the city, horrendous beasts that knew nothing but blood lust. He _had_ saved many people by building his army and his church of healers and the choir of researchers. He knew some sought to betray him, but they need only bide their time. He would destroy himself long before their plans came to fruition. 

He’d heard tales of experiments and creatures locked away in towers. Some said even there, below the great cathedral where he knelt in prayer, a cosmic deity lay hidden. Sometimes he swore he could feel it, an energy beneath his feet, reaching out to the moon but trapped in the earth. Even now, there was a hum that he was sure only he could hear, a quiet song woven with sorrow, the keening of loss. 

That was how he knew he was done for. Surely no pure human could understand such music. Surely no sane man would open his mouth and join in this song, voice hoarse, body screaming in pain. He fought, of course, fought the coming waters. It was cold already. Even on solid ground in his sacred place, he knew he was going to drown in this curse. Because of course it would betray him to his deepest fears. It would take his once beautiful face and rip it apart, his lean body turned ragged and his temperament lost to single minded madness. 

He would know no shame and perhaps there was comfort in that. A monster does not care about a human’s disgust. A monster only acts as provoked. How many would he kill before they brought him down? How very horrid would he become while his own hunters riddled him with wounds and spilled his tainted blood?

Would he recognize their faces and meet their slashes, or would he cower and let them do what had to be done. 

A voice began to whisper to him, and he met it with prayer. It spoke louder and louder until all he could do was force those practiced words to ward it off. 

But it roared within him. 

_You have failed, dear vicar._

“Remain wary of the frailty of men.”

_You will lose everything._

“Their wills are weak and minds young.”

_Do you feel it take hold? Do you feel your own mistakes rend muscle from bone?_

“Were it not… for fear…” he searched his memory for the words, but they did not rise to meet him. 

_Your precious, fragile life crumbles around you._

“Fear… oh fear… the old blood–” the words were cut short with a cough and blood splattered on stone. It dripped from his chin, and he did not have the strength to clean it from his face.

_Let me show you, false vicar, all that you will lose._

He careened forward and clutched at the cobblestone below, holding himself on hands and knees. 

_There you are,_ it spoke soothing tones in his mind. _Already brought down. The place you deserve to be._

His vision blurred, at once staring at pale thin hands, flecks of red across the skin, and blackness edged in, pulsating with the wild beating of his heart– at least he still had a heart– morphing into something else. Visions of the past. Of people on their knees before him, hands in prayer, hope bursting from them like starlight. Once upon a time, this city glowed with beautiful humanity. It was _his_ doing. 

He saw syringes of blood, IVs hooked up to shriveling bodies, and gaunt faces filling with life again. Ah, he had done so much for them– the hands were back, paler than could be possible, nails turned black, hair turning silver across the back of his hand– it was necessary to take the blood. Only he was fit to lead them. He had to make it last. He had to be there for these lost souls. Only he had the strength of mind, only he had the courage to wade through their muck and dirt, only he– it was _him_ – he who led and cured and brought the very stars to earth. 

All for these disgusting people. 

_Tick tock_

His muscles tensed, and the pain was unbearable and the sight of his own knuckles bent up to breaking. Anger rose to meet the snapping of his bones, the stretch of muscles and the blood spit up from a shredded throat. 

They did not deserve him. He who left it all behind and built them up. What did they ever do for him? Filthy humans, oh how they disturbed him. The violence and the sin and the stupidity. How quickly they took to arms at his call. How they reveled in their fears and their aggression. The weak, shamelessly hiding behind the strong. The strong, mindlessly heeding _his_ word. He molded them like clay so easily. They would fall without him. They would mourn him– as they damn well should– before they tore themselves apart. 

_Oh but you forget, you, dearest, most foul among them. You forget._

His body was abandoning human shape. He pushed against the bounds of his own anatomy, and raged against the ties of logic. 

A hand on his bare skin. Fingers tracing those most fragile parts of him. Trusting his bare self to another. An empire made meaningless in the presence of a beautiful man. There was a time when he was ready to give it up. When he wanted nothing more than those stolen moments with–

Oh gods no. 

In a pool of blood on the stone, he imagined he saw his own reflection, a beast so far gone, teeth too big for his mouth, cutting into his own skin, awful ragged fur and empty eyes, incapable of tenderness, of trust, of love.

_What will he think when he hears, when he sees, when he draws his weapon against you. Oh foolish man. Sing for him. Sing for all you have forsaken._

Clothes in shreds around him, much too monstrous now for them, large enough that only the most skilled of hunters would be brought to kill him. Only the bravest, with only the purest of intentions, and with only the strongest resolve to end this heinous beast’s reign. 

_You were heinous from the beginning, petty child._

Anger, so white hot that it burned along his skin. It exploded in flames around him, consuming him only as fast as the transformation could heal him. He would know this fire forever. He would feel this shame, this idiocy not to end his own life while he had the wits to, this guilt that he would force his most beloved hunter to face him in wretched combat. 

Laurence rose on two legs, stretched this new body, clenched his fists, felt every nerve and every inch of skin and every beat of his poisoned heart.

How he screamed through aching, raw throat, for the pain would never end. He had lost perfection. He had lost the feel of his head pressed to a beating heart, of hands clutching at skin, of unparalleled strength and devotion and the most beautiful loss of control– the chance to feel moonlight all around, inside, woven through him. 

He screamed as the memories faded, until all he felt was that untameable rage. He screamed until it meant nothing to him, until those proud hunters arrived, until he felt only the blood on his hands. 

And only that creature made of sorrow hidden deep below the earth would know the name that he cried as a lovely shining blade came singing through his flesh. 

_Oh most loyal hunter. I come for you next._

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading~


End file.
